I'm sure you've been biting your nails in anticipation
A week ago or so, I mentioned a trivia contest I was running on the Touch Arcade forums, with correct answers winning Guru Meditation redemption codes or a signed copy of Racing the Beam. I’ve given away all the codes and the book, so now it’s time to share the correct answers. (1) The Fairchild Channel F, an interchangeable cartridge… read more
Win copies of Guru Meditation, Racing the Beam
The nice folks over at Touch Arcade invited me to drop in and discuss my game Guru Meditation on their forum. To spur conversation, I decided to run a little trivia contest. I figured I’d point the rest of you to it. Here’s how it works: the first person to correctly answer any single question gets an iTunes redemption code… read more
The NSF Prefers Strings, Crayons
After an unintentional hiatus, last week I resumed following Georgia Tech CS colleague Mark Guzdial’s Amazon blog. His latest salvo is a thought-provoking piece called Using computing to teach computing (Hint: Don’t use the “P” word). The post centers around a question Mark posed to Jeannette Wing, Director of the Computing & Information Science & Engineering branch of the NSF… read more
Om for Atari and iPhone
After two years of off and on development, I’ve just released my relaxation game Guru Meditation, simultaneously for Atari VCS and iPhone. The game is a re-imagining of and homage to old Amiga lore, an exploration of what a game that legitimately deals with inactivity would feel like, and (through the iPhone version), an exploration of attention and compromise in… read more
A medititation game for Atari VCS and iPhone
Guru Meditation is my attempt to create a legitimate zen meditation game. It is also partly (perhaps largely) a reimagining of and homage to the Amiga lore, and for that reason I wrote it in 6502 assembly for the Atari VCS, so that it could be played with a joyboard, an unusual “joystick for the feet” manufactured by Amiga in… read more
The Onion Kebabs Apple
Satirical news source The Onion is funny every day (something that can’t even be said for The Daily Show or The Colbert Report), but sometimes they manage to elevate deadpan to the sublime. Today’s piece on the fictional announcement of the Apple Wheel is such a one. Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard Everything about this piece is… read more
A Review of the Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer
For years now, it has been necessary to remove laptops from carry-on bags for inspection at airport security here in the States. The TSA imposes this requirement to insure a clear view of the internal components of some electronics. Scanning a laptop separately allows security personnel to insure that a laptop not an improvised electronic device, a process made more… read more
A Review of the iPhone
Despite attempts to maintain my geek cred, despite my propensity for gadgeteering, despite my favor for the cult of Apple, despite my lust for shiny things with microprocessors, I didn’t get an iPhone when it first came out earlier this year. Indeed, I also didn’t get one when the new versions were released this month. It’s not that I wasn’t… read more
Photography, Flickr, and Me
As regular readers may have noticed, I have an interest in photography. I’ve started a photography section on this website, where you can view some of the photographs I have taken. Right now I’ve added galleries for Objects, Places, and People, as well as a photo project I’m slowly working on called Street Portraits. Over the last year I’ve gone… read more
Opinion piece published in Gamasutra
Note: the “Spore Store” description has been updated here to account for misinformation I received researching this material. Full clarification is available at the end of the Gamasutra article. In the games industry, Will Wright’s Spore is surely the most highly anticipated title in recent memory. Everyone knows about it — we’ve been seeing previews and demos and hearing news… read more